


Hopeless Dreamer

by discogirlcomingthrough



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 14:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discogirlcomingthrough/pseuds/discogirlcomingthrough
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The years weren't very good to Helga G Pataki. She couldn't remember a time when she was happy; truly happy. Every day she gave in just a little bit more to the depression that manifested her brain. All that remained of her was darkness. - All characters are 20 year's old. Slightly dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hopeless Dreamer

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own non of the Hey Arnold! Characters.

**Chapter 1:**

"Yo, toots! What’s a guy gotta do to get a refill over 'ere?"

"Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Hold your horses … criminy!"

The years weren't very good to Helga G Pataki. She couldn't remember a time when she was happy; truly happy. Every day she gave in just a little bit more to the depression that manifested her brain. All that remained of her was darkness.

Now she was twenty years old and had been living in a flat by herself far away from her home town of Hillwood working two jobs nearly seven days a week for over two years. As poor as she was, she always managed to scrap enough money together at the end of the month to pay her rent and keep a little extra aside for a rainy day.

One of the luxuries of working at a low class diner was that she had a five finger discount on all food and coffee. Caffeine was pretty much all she lived on these days to keep her awake to deal with her second job working as a mechanic in a garage across town.

It was still difficult for her to sleep at night. Her small studio flat was directly next to a train station. Nearly every 30 minutes a train would go rushing by, shaking the room in its wake. It was impossible for her to open the windows to let in some air on those hot stuffy nights for the sound would become unbearable.

On her eighteenth birthday, she decided to pack her bags and leave her life behind. Since she had legally become an adult, no one could stop her from leaving: not that anyone cared if she left. Bob and Miriam didn't even know it was her birthday and naturally never brought her a thing. She announced that evening that she was going and never coming back, and neither of them said a word. Well, that's a lie. Miriam did manage to slur 'ohhhhhhkay Olga' to her.

That was the last time she saw her family. Neither of them went looking for her. They didn't care. They were glad to see the back of her. Nobody else looked for her either. The only person in the world who worried about her safety was her best friend Phoebe.

She tried as much as she could to stay in contact with Phoebe. Whenever she had a minute, she would go over to an Internet cafe in the centre of town, order a coffee and send her an email to let her know she was still alive and was doing alright. The majority of the time she exaggerated how well everything was so her best friend didn't worry - though she knew she saw right through her.

Phoebe never knew where Helga worked or the address to where she lived. All she knew was the city in which she stayed. She has made many attempts to go and visit her there but Helga refused to let her meet up in her town in case anyone she worked with saw them together; even though she wasn't, she still felt as if she was on the run. She had even told everyone her name was Helena instead of Helga. Once every few months, they would both hop on a train and meet each other in a town half way for a day to catch up. However, this time around it had nearly been six months since Helga had seen her only friend. Phoebe was doing fine for herself back home with her boyfriend Gerald and planning her future.

She hardly missed the place she grew up. It wasn't the same since the day that stupid football head decided to say in San Lorenzo with his parents after reuniting on a school trip when they were fourteen years old.

It broke her.

Since that day she wasn't the same mean, tough as nails bully but sweet and loving deep down Helga anymore; she was just a shell going through the motions. For six years she hadn't heard from him, not even one letter. It didn't matter though. Nothing did these days.

On the nights she did managed to fall asleep, all she could do was recite what happened on that trip. How Arnold and she were stranded, how close they became, how she had saved him and nursed him, how they saved his parents, how he had kissed her, and then left her out to pasture.

She couldn't bring herself to feel resentment for him deciding to stay, but she damn well hated how they left it and how he never tried to get in contact with her.

Back in the diner, Helga shuffled around cleaning used tables, refilling coffees, taking and shouting orders to the kitchen and sneering at rude customers. The walls she built as a child never came down. No one would ever come close to knowing who she really was. She was just the mysterious waitress in a short light pink dress with a white pinafore; white knee high socks and a white hat with the diner’s logo on top of her French braided hair that cares for nothing and no one. What was the point in caring? It only ever leads to pain.

This particular day the garage was shut for maintenance so she decided she'd picked up a few extra hours at the diner. She was always swept off her feet. The majority of the customers that would come to the diner were biker’s, truckers, old people, run a way’s, workers from across the street or poor students unable to afford anything else. She deemed the place a bit of a pit stop.

Sometimes she had to deal with barbaric customers who believed her to be a piece of meat. She had to try and ignore it when someone would smack or grab her ass for the fear of losing her job; though occasionally she has made a 'clumsy' mistake of dropping food over them whilst clearing their table or tipping the boiling pot of coffee over their crotch as she 'tripped' over her laces.

There were only two other waitresses and a waiter who worked in the diner but only two of them would work at a time unless Helga decided she was going to do an eighteen hour shift which wasn’t unknown for her to do. It wasn't the biggest place but it was a moderate size and on the busy days could fit around fifty people if not more provided everyone didn't mind sitting at a table with a stranger.

The only person she occasionally spoke to was another waitress named Molly, though she doubted if that was her real name. Molly was twenty two with dark brown hair that was always messily tied up into a bun that sat under her hat. She was quite optimistic. Helga supposed that was why she could stand her; her optimism would always remind her of Arnold, though the similarities stopped there. In fact, she was more like Helga. She didn't give a crap about anything and she was tough enough to stand up for herself and her co-workers. It was a constant effort for Molly to invite Helga out for a drink after work or even to drive her home to attempt to get to know her more, but she would never indulge her. Nobody needed to know about the girl hiding behind the false name.

Even though Molly and a few other people in the diner would offer her lifts home when she worked the late at night shift (until midnight when the diner closed), she would always refuse. She didn't want anyone to know where she lived. Besides, she could take care of herself and it was only a twenty minute walk, ten if she was determined. Tonight was one of those late nights.

"Are you sure you don't want a lift, Helena?" Molly pleaded.

"No, I'm fine." She mumbled, pulling a long black coat over her light pink dress.

"But you might as well, it's freezing out there! And our dresses are really short: you'll catch the death of you." She insisted.

"No, I'm fine." She repeated. "You are locking up?" Leaning behind the counter, she grabbed her navy blue rucksack and carelessly threw it over one shoulder. Molly nodded.

"Yeah, the chefs left a few minutes ago."

"'Kay" She wasn't one for small talk. "See you tomorrow night then."

"Are you sure you don't-"

"Yes. Bye" she snapped, pushing herself out of the door causing the bell above to jingle.

It wasn't such a bad walk. It helped her clear her head somewhat. She would silently speak to herself working out how much money she had, how much she needed for rent, water, electricity and whatever else she had to pay then she could work out how much she could put away and save. She didn't know what she was saving for but if she learnt anything from Big Bob it was always be stingy and save your money.

Try as she did to keep her mind on the current issues, she would always reluctantly allow her mind to wander back to thinking about the only boy she had ever loved; wondering what he was doing now and how has his life been in the past six years, was he married or did he have a girlfriend, was he happy or was he even alive?

"Stop it, Helga" she scolded herself.

Walking into hallway of her building, she quickly ran up the stairs to the top floor and towards her flat. Fumbling around in her rucksack, she pulled out her keys and entered room, automatically flicking on the lights and locking the door behind her.

The flat was tiny compared to Helga's old home. To the right of the door was a very tiny yet clean kitchen with hardly any crockery. To the left sat a tatty brown couch and coffee table and an occasional working 19 inch screen television. Straight ahead was a door leading to a spotless bathroom with a wardrobe prop up on the wall next to it, and underneath the window a mattress laid on the floor with a few pillows and sheets thrown on top and LED lights strung around the wall above. She couldn't afford to get a bed stand so she slept pretty much on the ground but she didn't mind; at least she had a mattress. It wasn't the fanciest of places but it was hers and she worked very hard to maintain it.

Since coming to the city, she developed an impulsive urge to keep everything clean, it helped her relax. If she could she would clean everything twice a day.

Drooping over to her bedroom set and pulling off her clothes on the way, she opened her wardrobe and pulled out a hanger to place her work dress on, and then put on a white tank top and loose bed time shorts throwing the rest of her clothes into her laundry basket.

Once changed, she took her work dress over to the kitchen and laid it out on the counter. Turning on the hot water to allow it to fill the bowl in the sink, she lost her concentration. She stared deep into the running water taking in every drop. She began reminiscing again.

_“Helga! … Helga!”_

Shaking her head violently, she grunted. Turning off the tap, she grabbed her dress and roughly began to scrub it clean.

“Helga!”

Gritting her teeth, she fought with herself to hold back the tears threatening to fall. She won’t cry. It’s weak to cry. She kept hearing that voice in her head, the one screaming out her name.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” She wailed flinging her dress down as her knees began buckling beneath her. Grabbing a hold of the kitchen counter so she didn’t fall, she watched as her dress sank to the bottom of the bowl. Sniffing back her emotions and heavily gasping for air, she felt physically drained. It wasn’t often she had one of her panic attacks but when she did, it took a very long time to calm herself down. She bit down hard on her lip holding back her outburst and drew a little blood. “Not now, o’girl,” she whispered continuously.

After half an hour of trying to control herself, she finally regained her composure. Sighing, she pulled her dress out of the sink, rung it out and took it into the bathroom to hang in the shower so it had time to dry before her next shift at the diner. Looking down at her watch, she saw it was nearly one in the morning. She was supposed to start work at the garage at nine only allowing herself around six hours sleep if she drifted off right away which was a rarity for her. After brushing her teeth, she decided to try and call it a night, listening to the whistling and whooshing of the trains running by. As soon as her head hit the pillow, for the first time since she was fourteen years old, she was asleep within seconds.

_“Helga! …. Helga!”_

_It took him a few years after finding his Dad’s journal to make it to San Lorenzo. He won a competition at his school to select where his class would go on a field trip and he jumped on the opportunity to take them there. No one knew why he chose this place except for his best friend Gerald; though Helga had an idea. After getting off of the plane and making their way to the campsite, Arnold had found himself sneaking away from his classmates and deep into the jungle not realising that anyone had noticed. Frightened for his safety, Helga pointed him leaving out to Gerald and Phoebe and the three of them instantly followed after him._

_Helga was extremely angry that he took off like that. As soon as they caught up with him, she let him have a piece of her mind._

_“Criminy, football head! You trying to get yourself killed?!”_

_“Helga?!“ He span on his heel. “Gerald? Phoebe? W-what are you guy’s doing here?”_

_“What are WE doing here? We should ask you the same question! You don’t just going running off into the jungle on your own, you dumb paste-for-brains!” She clenched her fists. “Now we’re all lost! If we die our here because of you, so help me I will pound you into next week!”_

_“Then you shouldn’t have followed me, should you?” He retaliated, causing Helga to stand bewildered._

_“Man, why did you come on your own?” Gerald question. Arnold shook his head._

_“I need to do this on my own.”_

_“Oh right, geek-bait, you needed to do something ‘on your own’. Well then, fine! Be on your own. I hope you have fun getting eaten by a bear on your own, too! Come on, Pheebs.”  She grabbed her friends arm and turned them around to return to her class mates when it happened. Two men holding large knives came out from behind a tree and began approaching them. All four of them froze to the spot._

_“Looky, looky what we found.” One of the men smirked. “Ikkle-wikkle children.”_

_“Oh good, ‘cause I’m getting hungry.” The other licked his knife causing them to shiver with fear._

_Helga put her arm in front of Phoebe to protect her and slowly began to push her back towards Arnold and Gerald as the men came closer. Her eye’s scanned her surroundings and noticed a few rocks near Arnold’s feet. Gerald had reached out for Phoebe’s hand and pulled her towards him. Once Helga knew her best friend was safe behind the two boys, she quickly grabbed the largest rock off of the floor and launched it at the closest man hitting him square in the face, knocking him to the ground._

_“Run!” She yelled, grabbing a hold of Arnold and Phoebe’s hands, dragging them through the jungle._

_“HEY!” The second one shouted chasing after them leaving his friend flat out on the floor contemplating what had just happened. The four of them hand in hand ran as fast as they could away from the men._

_“Ah!” Arnold yelped, tripping over a vine and landing on sharp branch that stuck into his shoulder. Helga stopped to help him up. Seeing the man running behind them, she turned to Gerald._

_“Go! Go! Get her to safety, now!”_

_“Arnold!”_

_“Don’t worry, I’ll help Football head, just make that sure she’s safe or so help me I will shave off your hair! Now go, Geraldo!” Biting his lip, he turned and pulled Phoebe with him running towards where he thought the camp site might be. Finally getting Arnold up from the floor, she dragged him back through the forest in the opposite direction to where Gerald and Phoebe had gone in the hopes that the man would chase them instead of her friend. The man was gaining on them. Seeing a clearing just ahead, Arnold began to lead Helga towards it. However, as soon as it was too late to stop, Arnold realised what the clearing was. Clenching his eyes tightly, he grabbed hold of Helga’s waist telling her to close her eyes, too. Confused, she did as he told her to do. Not a second later, she realised why._

_“AHHHHHH-”_


End file.
